Experience & explanation
The relation between descriptions of mental function and the fact that there is something it feels like to experience.
Does experience make a difference?
Our lives respond to pain, thought, and feeling. Explaining their causal role becomes difficult when experience is treated as something added to an already sufficient physical process.
The brain as a filter
A filter theory treats the brain as a condition of access to consciousness. Its strongest question concerns dependence; its hardest task is explaining what the filter actually does.
The fact of experience
A description of what a mind does leaves a disputed question about why there is anything it feels like to be that mind.
What neural intervention shows
Altering brain activity can alter a specific experience. That establishes a causal role for neural processes while leaving the ultimate nature of experience disputed.
What physicalism commits us to
Physicalism makes a claim about the foundations of reality. Its success depends on explaining experience, rather than merely locating the machinery associated with it.